The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for forming piece goods batches. The present invention will be described here with reference to containers for beverages and in particular so-called “pouches”, i.e. deformable containers for beverages, such as juice cartons for example. However, the invention can also be applied to other piece goods batches and in particular to containers.
A wide range of conventional apparatuses for forming such piece goods batches are known from the prior art. It is known for example to supply the piece goods in a row to a transverse pushing mechanism which then pushes these rows transversely to the transport direction and in this way forms piece goods batches which comprise a plurality of rows of piece goods arranged next to one another. These batches can be separated for example from other piece goods batches by means of intermediate layers. It is known that the conveyor belts which supply the piece goods to the transverse pushing mechanism operate in a discontinuous mode and possibly are even stationary at times.